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April 21, 2011
for Public Speaking and Atlantic Yards: Ask the Right Question
Speaking Up for Success
Prospect Heights activist and speaking coach Jezra Kaye counsels that whether you're giving a speech or fighting a land grab, asking the right question is all-important.
When I was working against the boondoggle Atlantic Yards project, City Councilperson Letitia James (who, along with State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, was our guiding political light), noted that the question you ask predicts the answer you’ll get.
And yes, the positions in this 7-year fight were summed up by these questions:
Bruce Ratner (billionaire developer from Cleveland): Do you think Brooklyn should get 10,000 jobs, thousands of units of low income housing, and a shiny new sports arena?
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (plucky bunch of underfunded community activists): Do you think 800 people and businesses should be removed from their homes by the state so that their land can be given to a billionaire developer from Cleveland, at a cost to New York taxpayers of $1.6 billion dollars?
Time will show which of these questions was more germane. (Hint: 150 jobs. No low-income housing. Profits will flow to the mega-billionaire from Russia who bailed out our Cleveland guy.) But history has already shown that the question is father (or mother) to the answer.
Posted by eric at April 21, 2011 11:04 AM